Sunday, November 8, 2009

Scared Again

And again I received a well meaning “warning”. It went like this:

New Virus (NO JOKE)This is legitimate. Please pass this along to your friends. The newest virus circulating is the UPS/FedEx/DHL Delivery Failure.
You will receive an email from UPS/Fed Ex Service along with a packet number.
It will say that they were unable to deliver a package sent to you on such-and-such a date.
It then asks you to print out the invoice copy attached.
DON'T TRY TO PRINT THIS… IT LAUNCHES THE VIRUS!
Pass this warning on to all your PC operators at work and home.
Snopes confirms that it is real. http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/ups.asp

True, that IS a known scam to distribute a virus program. BUT:

If nobody in the household ordered anything that we expect through UPS/FedEx/DHL it can only be a scam, right?

And again, if we are observant of what we are doing we will see that the link in the email does NOT go to a legitimate UPS/FedEx/DHL web site.

AND: Even children should know that these three carriers will NEVER notify any recipient via email. If they can not deliver a package they always leave a paper notification.

And NO, but absolutely no recipient of a package can ever print an invoice through the freight carrier’s service. Only the buyer of the merchandise can do that on the merchant’s web site, right?

So really, only when we are un-observant we would fall for a dumb social engineering trick like this in the first place. I don't think anybody I know is in that category.

Everybody out there, PLEASE do not forward such tracts to me.

And still, there is a lesson to be learned here:

This curiosity impulse that makes a person click “to see what is in the package” (?) is all the hacker wants from us. This one click will lead to a maliciously programmed web site that may attempt to coax us into revealing personal information, that may immediately download malicious programs into our computer and so on – unless we actually use our common sense before we click – or forward a message like this.

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Hi Eike,

Believe it or not, but there are a few ignorant people out there that believe emails like this to be true. On the other hand I believe there are people out there that just forward these messages without reading them themselves. Just my thoughts.

About Me

52 years in Information Technology and 34 years of experience with PCs as of 2016. Specialized in non-destructive virus and malware removal, home computer protection and showing my customers how to keep their computers "mean and clean". From 2004 to 2015 I was the regular computer guru on a local radio call-in talk show. From April 2015 through April 2016 I was bi-wwekly on WBKV 1470AM. I offer only house calls and work exclusively on MS-Windows. I do NOT sell hardware or software, I sell only my know how, my experience and my time.